GBP/JPY Equity Building Profitable trading strategies

[rrram2]

Out again! another 75% gone.

I learned never underestimate the ability of the bottom to fall out of GJ!

[Sweet Pip]

Originally Posted by rrram2

Out again! another 75% gone.

I learned never underestimate the ability of the bottom to fall out of GJ!

OUCH! I really feel for ya....seriously

Well this was very "enlightening"...of ones equity that is One must really have deep pockets to play this game especially with this pair.

It did however give me something to think about as far as earning interest goes and leaving trades open longer, but perhaps in a little more conservative way...didn't really understand carry trades that much, and now I do thanks to you.

Hope it makes a comeback for you soon

[pipsquito]

I had $68,000 in my account last night, now I have $9,000. And yes, it was a real account. You can say I was stupid but I did trade the system for a little over a week in a demo account. It seemed simple enough, and is, I didn't feel a need to trade it demo any longer. And still don't. What would have trading demo done to avert this situation?

Was there a way out of this? Could my demo skills have avoided this catastrophe? I don't think so. I just held on...there were no "save your ass" tactics here I didn't know about.

The only thing I could have done in hindsight was put in that short hedge order for the total number of trades I had long. I set up that trade, but later took it out feeling that I was not expressing faith in the system...and I was certain it would turn around and head back up before that trade could do any good.

Well...easy come easy go I guess. I will eventually recover I suppose. That IS a lot of money and I will feel it, but it won't kill me.

I do wish I didn't trade this on my real account, of course. If this had happened with a demo it would have taught me not to touch it. So that was where I was stupid. But I did believe in the system, too much.

For it to work I think I would have to trade micro lots or trade minis with a much larger balance (I was trading 2 or 3 minis per trade). If I had traded 1 mini per trade the return would be so small and the work to get it so large I just don't know if it would have been worth the hassle.

Now I wish there was a way I could recover from this. I have $9,000 in my account. I could probably get some more in there in a week or so. Not up to $50,000 (my financial adviser has the only direct acess to all my cash and I don't want to tell him I blew $50,000). So do I go long on the GJ believing it will retrace much of this? I may as well do something crazy. I don't care about the 9k I have left (I sound like I am in a Casino now!!)

I will go back to being a good boy and trading almost risk free if I recover. I had a system going for me that made $100k into $400k since February. With no where near the exposure. Why didn't I stick with that? Ah...nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Thanks to all here...and Elijah, I of course put no blame on you or your system. I went into this eyes wide open. It is a cool system and I liked playing it. We just hit a rare occurrence....too bad it was on my second time out.

I will trade this on a demo I suppose...just to see if this breakdown ever happens again.

Good trading!!

[mytwopips]

I feel for you guys, but don't give up. But you do need to take a little time away from the market to clear your head. If you don't, you will find yourself revenge trading.

Ever wonder why the casinos put the $50 and $100 slots at the exit?

I once blew $350,000 on a bad business deal. No, it wasn't Forex but the money was the same no matter what. Also, I am not rich. Blows like that hurt. Yet I didn't give up and well on my way now to being back to where I was.

That is why I am looking at trading. With trading, if you make a mistake, just tell yourself "I screwed up" and walk away to the next trade with most of your capital still in place. In business, if you screw up, you lose almost all capital.

[pipsquito]

One draw back to trading demo for so long you get used to taking chances knowing it doesn't really matter. When I opened my real account it all looked exactly the same...I like taking risk, so I dove right in. I have only blown one account before, buying down on the GU which moved 300 pips in one evening (another rare occurrence). But that was a demo account. When this strategy opened up I went for it, like I was trading on a demo account. I do believe in taking risk to be rewarded high gain. But not risk like this. It was an immature thing to do and I cop to that completely. But I have done well all my life doing crazy things, so it is part of my personality! I don't think it will ALWAYS bite you to be risky. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. I got eaten.

Yes, I will not give up. Sometimes I think of that as a disadvantage. I never give up...ever...and often times I wish I would. I will find a way to get more money in my account and go at it again. And I will succeed at this, no question in my mind about it...but it still hurts...and right now I am not feeling so great about this loss.

Thanks for your post, mytwopips, at least after reading that I feel like my $50,000 wasn't so great. In the big scheme of things I guess it isn't. I do have more...and I have lost that much in the stock market easily over the past year (much more actually.) Cost of doing business I guess. I suppose what bugs me the most is feeling that I was irresponsible placing dozens of no SL buy trades as a pair is going down. Using my previous method of trading, which did well, I would never have been at that sort of risk exposure.

Anyway...this has been interesting and fun as well! The cool thing about the forex is that you can make $50,000 ALMOST as easy as you can lose it!! At least there is the potential for that!! I'll be back!

See ya...

Todd

[pipalheiro]

Hi rrram2 and all!
My very first post here in the forum, first to say thanks to rram2 for the system. I like cleaned charts and simple systems, so I decided to join the... "adventure". In a "bad" week I have to admit. You see, my first open position with this system that still open is at 204,79... so far, I still confortable with it: I'm trading real at Oanda, in a sub-account, and I apply 0,05% as lot size. Of course, I don't expect GBP/JPY continues in downtrend to 192's as on last March 16 but with this pair who knows? May be I should have applied a 0,01% as lot size... =

[pipsquito]

Hey pipalheiro...welcome, and good luck.

rrram2 had mentioned in some post he was going to devise some sort of hedging idea to this system...maybe with a short that ran along side the longs being bought to offset the draw down. I hope he still considers this.

Although my account basically got blown, I think if I had had a short trade put in at the total number of my long opened trades to trigger on that breakout I would have survived it. Someone suggested doing this and I set it up only to delete the pending trade (???? dufus). Anyway...it would have saved me.

I have $9,000 still in my account. If by some miracle GJ rises at the open and races up I may have a chance to get some of that balance back. (Elijah, do you think this will happen?) I plan to play it carefully...scalping on the way up. Since I have nothing to lose, I may scalp with larger lot sizes, who knows. Cowboy time.

It would be nice if there were some sort of protection against this sort of run down killing your account. It isn't nice to trade a system even if there is a very slight chance you could lose it all. Obviously we have seen it happen right here. rrram2 himself had a blowout.

I am refunding my account soon. I don't think I will trade this live again...at least not for a while. If rrram devises a little bit of a safety plan then I'd try it again. I do like it.

Todd

[bbruno]

Todd, this is very bad situation for every trader and every excellent trader has this experience. Do not put away your 9K account which is now available, do not forget that you can turn every small account(5-10K) into million after some time. I think the best what you can do now is DO NOT TRADE minimal two weeks and do not try to get your money back. I do not know how your financial situation is but for me 10K is lot of money and I know lot of people which starts with 300 - 2K accounts are very happy with small gains and try to learn consistency, persistence and discipline which is most important. It is not about one week trading, even one month. We deal with best business in the world if handled professionally. Take care and best luck

[pipsquito]

Originally Posted by bbruno

Todd, this is very bad situation for every trader and every excellent trader has this experience. Do not put away your 9K account which is now available, do not forget that you can turn every small account(5-10K) into million after some time. I think the best what you can do now is DO NOT TRADE minimal two weeks and do not try to get your money back. I do not know how your financial situation is but for me 10K is lot of money and I know lot of people which starts with 300 - 2K accounts are very happy with small gains and try to learn consistency, persistence and discipline which is most important. It is not about one week trading, even one month. We deal with best business in the world if handled professionally. Take care and best luck

Thank you...this was a very good post, I appreciate it. My $9k however is not in the clear. This is what I was implying when I said I would carefully trade it. There is still a $6k draw down, so my point is that I want to get it clear of that draw down. I want to salvage it, not really "get my money back" but to get some of that true balance back. Otherwise I AM just letting it go, which I don't want to do. Once this week has passed and the GJ has done what it will do then I will sit back and regroup.

I have been trading demo for two years now. I do feel that I have learned something...I've shared on this forum a zillion times how successful my trading has been. However, I know live trading is different. I was afraid that difference would be a fear of going out on a limb. For me it has been the opposite. I never really thought of my live account as being "real" and dove in with a new strategy right off the bat (I did demo it for a while, but that isn't the point, I should have been much more conservative.) Now I have learned the hard way...although I think if I had been trading this GBP strategy for the past year on a demo I would still have had this experience. Me blowing the account had nothing to do with my skill as a trader...rrram2's account got blown too, and he is the expert.

Anyway...what you say here is very valuable. I intend to do things very carefully and according to my plan. And have patience. Thanks again for your comments...

Todd

[rrram2]

Times get tough like they are now and lots of people cannot affored to keep thier funds in earning interest and have to take it out. SO it is going down.
But I am still certain she is coming back and cannot get over how low she went on nothing significant. Prolly some big fat bank running us down and out and them boom 2 days later we hit 210 or some crazy price.
The price of gas at 3.60 a gallon here is getting pricey even in a honda.

Originally Posted by Sweet Pip

OUCH! I really feel for ya....seriously

Well this was very "enlightening"...of ones equity that is One must really have deep pockets to play this game especially with this pair.

It did however give me something to think about as far as earning interest goes and leaving trades open longer, but perhaps in a little more conservative way...didn't really understand carry trades that much, and now I do thanks to you.

Hope it makes a comeback for you soon